John Hick’s religious pluralism, as summarized in academic materials

Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Religious Diversity (Pluralism),” on John Hick (opens in a new tab)

Objections & responses

Some Buddhists and many Hindus hold that every description of the summit is provisional, since ultimate reality is beyond concepts, so contradictory descriptions can point to the same reality. Doesn’t “different summits” confuse the descriptions with the summit?

This is the apophatic version of pluralism, and it deserves an answer. If ultimate reality is beyond all description, then cessation of the self and eternal life with a personal God are both false as descriptions, which is a claim the Buddhist and the Christian each reject about their own summit. The apophatic pluralist has not reconciled the traditions; he has overruled both. Hick’s own treatment of this problem, and the responses to it, are in the Stanford Encyclopedia’s entry on religious diversity, and the exchange is worth reading in full.

Appears under 1 claim in this case

• The popular idea that all religions are different paths up the same mountain does not hold, because the traditions describe different and contradictory summits.